Morning Thoughts

Happy weekend! Well, this will be a busy one in most places. I was driving to Springfield yesterday to see my friend Carla and the traffic was horrendous. About a mile before each on-ramp, the traffic would come to a near standstill. It’s definitely vacation time and so many cities will be busting with tourists.  ..."We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭26:1-4‬ ‭ESV‬‬ Open those gates of the city so the righteous can come on in! Don’t you just love that picture? Do you wonder if the on-ramps will be backing up traffic into that city? The one who trusts in you, you keep completely whole. These are the ones who stay at it, who don’t give up and don’t quit. These are the righteous ones for whom Jesus will open the flood ...

Happy Thursday! Don’t you love the summertime? Casey and I were lamenting the other day that we both look so forward to summer coming and then as soon as it gets here, we start dreading the end! It’s just the “most wonderful time of the year!” Sun and summer...you can have the cold and snow of winter.  One of my favorite things to do in the summer (I have a couple of hundred) is to watch kids chase the lightning bugs at dusk. Those bugs light up, the kids run to them. How fun and spontaneous it all is—light attracts those kids every time.  And we see that everywhere. Light it up and they will come. Las Vegas, the ice cream stand, your porch, it doesn’t matter, light attracts. It’s our nature. We don’t like the dark. Except for those things we don’t want anyone to see. If we are doing something in secret, something wrong, something we don’t want “seen” then we stick to the dark. We stay way from anything that would show anyone else what we are doing.  In the first chapter ...

Happy Wednesday! Did it storm on you yesterday? We had thunderstorms around us and my sister and I were in the midst of it and I was driving so she was a little more excited than normal—but for the most part, we skirted the heavy parts.  When the rains come and the thunder crashes and the wind blows so hard (some places around us had 60 mph gusts), I can’t help but think of the Savior in the middle of it all sleeping on a boat. Disciples scared out of their wits (maybe even more than Sissy when I’m driving in the rain), and when they couldn’t stand it one more minute, they wake Him up.  (From this side of history, it’s hilarious that they said “Don’t you care if we all die?” Now they fully believed He was God and capable of saving them, but they thought a storm could kill Him while He was sleeping?)  But then, in the center of the storm, our Jesus stands up and says “Peace! Be still!” And he “rebuked” the wind. “express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because...

Good Tuesday morning to you! I was reading in James this morning and I didn’t get far. I kept going over and over the first four verses.  “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” ‭‭James‬ ‭1:2-4‬ ‭NLT‬‬ I think this little passage is so confusing. Not the part about counting your trials joy, well maybe that is too actually. So instead of worry lines, we are to be making laugh lines through troubles? That seems difficult. Not only difficult but a little on the crazy side until you read a little further. James said it’s because it’s like exercise for your faith, it’s a way to work it out and make it stronger. (And we all know there was never an effective exercise that wasn’t painful!) When your faith is tested, it grows and ...

Good Monday to you! I hope you had a great weekend. Here we had a beautiful day on Saturday and some good rain on Sunday. Yesterday, we had a great church service and I heard a sermon on John 7 where frankly, Jesus just acts weird.  Last week one of my grandkids called the other one weird and I said “Of course she’s weird, and so are you! You’re all weird because you were raise by weird Hudson women. And they’re weird because I raised them and I’m weird. We are one big family of weirdos. It’s in our genes. Embrace it. Learn to love it. And then someday, you can make fun of your kids!” We probably really aren’t very normal, but then again, not many people are. Jesus certainly wasn’t.  The truth is Jesus really WAS weird. He was so different, people couldn’t understand Him in those days and even today, people have a lot of difficulty with Him even with time and perspective and resources galore. Reading though this chapter, it’s almost funny how they kept trying to figure it ou...

It’s the weekend! I happened you’ve had a good week and you’re looking forward to a great time the next two days—time to spend with friends and family and time in corporate worship of the King. I’ve had an eventful one. I went to the doctor and found out I’m going to have surgery on the now infamous finger-that-refuses-to-heal. (That should be a good time.)  My sister and I have spent about 2,000 hours researching and visiting nursing homes and assisted living centers with memory care units within a 50-mile radius. It’s a position no one wants to be in, but truly if we live long enough, we will all probably end up needing full time care. It’s that circle of life—just as we needed constant supervision when we were two, my mom needs it at 90. What we have found though, there are some nice places. Places that look like home and not a hospital so that does make it a little easier but none the less, it’s not a task for the weak, this declaring your mom needs full-time care and putting h...

Happy Friday to you! I read yesterday that “Marriage is out of fashion” and since less than half of the households in the country are married (48 percent) which is down dramatically since I was in high school when it was more like 2/3rds and down even further still from 1950 when nearly 80 percent of all households were married. So...what has happened over the last 70 years to change our perspective on marriage?  Is it because divorce is easier? A single live style is more acceptable? Women make better money? People living together? Gay lifestyle more acceptable? I have no idea of the surface cause or causes but I think maybe I know the root cause and it all boils down to selfishness. It’s really hard to be in a marriage and be selfish. And the world we live in teaches us that “we deserve a break” and “do it your way” and 100 other little jingles that tell us it’s all about us and our pleasure and our wants and wishes. Never do we hear about putting others before ourselves or how b...